The present invention, generally, relates to computer networks and, more particularly, to methods, systems and computer program products for managing such computer networks.
Companies are often dependent on mission-critical network applications to stay productive and competitive. To achieve this, information technology (IT) organizations preferably provide reliable application performance on a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week basis. One known approach to network performance testing to aid in this task is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,881,237 (“the 237 patent”) entitled Methods, Systems and Computer Program Products for Test Scenario Based Communications Network Performance Testing. As described in the '237 patent, a test scenario simulating actual applications communication traffic on the network is defined. Various performance characteristics are measured while the test is executing. The resultant data may be provided to a console node, coupled to the network, which may also initiate execution of the test scenario by the various endpoint nodes.
Information technology processes may be primarily managed using, for example, ticketing systems. Having good visibility into several aspects of process execution may be difficult. Furthermore, the operation of an IT installation may require constant attention to exceptional conditions, for example, hardware and software failures, over-utilized resources and/or slow response times, in order to analyze these conditions. The analysis may determine the cause and effect of the exceptional conditions and address these conditions, so as to provide continued service delivery. Many of the manual steps used may be routine, and executing them manually may be a waste of expensive human resources. In other cases, understanding of the causes and effects of exceptional conditions may be present in the organization, but not currently in hand, so duplication of effort in the analysis of these conditions may occur, which may also waste expensive human resources.